Hudson County’s biggest political story of the year should come as no surprise. Steve Fulop, the 36-year-old Downtown man who spent two terms on the City Council blasting traditional Hudson County politics and cultivating a sizable base of support, was elected mayor on May 14.

The margin was decisive – Fulop unseated former Mayor Jerramiah Healy 52 to 38 percent – and large enough to prevent a runoff. It was an early night, too. The polls had barely closed when Healy told his crestfallen supporters that, yep, they’d have to deal with Mayor Fulop for at least the next four years.

The convincing win turned Fulop into a political celebrity practically overnight. Fulop events that used to attract only local media soon pulled in national press.

Fulop won election vowing change. It remains to be seen whether he can deliver, though he certainly has given Jersey City some buzz. It’s now the only city in the state to have a paid sick time mandate; there are tons of colorful murals popping up all over the joint; there finally appears to be construction in Journal Square.

There have been bumps in the road. One of his first actions as mayor was to push through a 2013 budget that raised city taxes about 8 percent, a hike Fulop blamed on Healy. The Jersey Journal discovered that one of his top department directors, who makes nearly $200,000 a year, claims to live in College Towers, which is meant for low- and middle-income families. And his glances at the governor’s mansion have critics wondering whether his attention is fully on Jersey City.

The Jersey City mayor’s race probably wouldn’t take up the top two slots on this list if President Obama hadn’t decided to weigh in.

The leader of the free world rarely endorses in local races, but Healy was an early backer of then-Sen. Obama’s fledgling presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton. Obama returned the favor in March by endorsing Healy over Fulop. Campaign officials said it took weeks to secure the nod.

The news stunned everyone. Fulop’s Democratic supporters were apoplectic, saying they planned to write letters to Obama demanding an explanation for why he decided to intervene in a fight between two Democrats. Some believed it was a hoax. Fulop’s donors started to hold back.

Members of Team Healy, meanwhile, were practically skipping with joy. The nation’s first black president endorsing the sitting mayor of a city that went for Obama in huge margins just four months before? This race is basically over, they thought. I heard Fulop was seen sobbing, one said.

But in the end, Obama couldn’t get Healy a third full term. Fulop became mayor on July 1.

The fractured Hoboken City Council became more divided in September 2012, when former member and Mayor Dawn Zimmer ally Carol Marsh stepped down, leaving four Zimmer friends and four Zimmer foes on the council dais.

Gridlock. Administration initiatives ranging from legal bills regarding the ongoing Monarch suit to housing authority appointments died without a fifth Zimmer vote on the council.

This November’s election results tilted the council back in Zimmer’s favor, with the mayor winning reelection and all three of her council candidates. Zimmer fought back challenges from Assemblyman Ruben Ramos and Council Tim Occhipinti, a member of the anti-Zimmer bloc.

Occhipinti, Fulop-style, quit his day job to make a late-entry run for mayor, only to come in at 17 percent (YOLO).

The sudden détente forged in June by Sens. Nick Sacco, the North Bergen mayor, and Brian Stack, the Union City mayor, could probably go in this slot, if anyone believed it.

So let’s go with an actual bromance: Stack and Gov. Chris Christie. Stack’s a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat and Christie a conservative Republican, but that hasn’t stopped the two men from starring in a lovefest that rivals Romeo and Juliet.

In February, Christie came to Union City for the opening of a new elementary school that had already opened five months before. Stack didn’t officially endorse Christie’s reelection bid for four more months, but at the school “opening” it was clear who Stack wanted to win. Christie, Stack told a packed auditorium, is “numero uno.”

On Election Day, the governor walloped Buono in the Democratic-heavy city, capturing nearly 60 percent of the vote in a city where 82 percent of voters supported President Obama just one year prior.

Christie recognized Stack’s support by making his first post-election public appearance in, yep, Union City, where he gave voters a big “Gracias!”

It was a rumor for weeks in the early summer, but it turned out to be only half-true. Jim McGreevey, the former governor who resigned after coming out as gay and revealing that he had appointed his secret lover to a homeland security post for which the man was not qualified, was indeed joining the Fulop administration, but as something of a jobs czar, not the B.A.

The move, which includes having McGreevey start a prisoner reentry program, made even some staunch Fulop supporters queasy. The mayor who pledged to clean up local politics is giving a six-figure job to a disgraced former governor? The headlines wrote themselves.

Critics carped that it looked like McGreevey is trying to sneak his way back into politics. The governor says he has no intention of doing so, and Fulop insists McGreevey is the right guy for the job. Time will tell.

A portion of state Assemblyman Charles Mainor's Facebook "likes," before he quickly deleted a few of the Rated R ones.Facebook

Ah, Facebook. The social-media site allows politicians to connect with their constituents with just a few keystrokes. It also gets them in trouble just for hitting the “like” button.

Assemblyman Charles Mainor, D-Jersey City, a police detective, made headlines in February when The Jersey Journal reported that he liked two, shall we say, mature Facebook pages. One was "You Got Knocked the Fck Out Man'', which posts videos of people getting beaten to a bloody pulp. The other one was the self-explanatory" Big Bootie Freaks.''

That’s the “like” that introduced the rest of the nation to this Hudson County pol. Even The Daily Show skewered Mainor, including a news segment about the brouhaha in its “Moment of Zen" on Feb. 19.

Mainor blamed much of the kerfuffle on gun advocates, who at the time had been criticizing the assemblyman for pro-gun control bills he was advancing in the state Assembly (many of the comments on the story were from gun enthusiasts razzing Mainor).

The two “likes” immediately disappeared from Mainor’s Facebook page as soon as this paper called him to ask about them, and the assemblyman now only likes pages that are family friendly, like "A Real Womans (sic) Struggle, Strength and Integrity" and" Joel Osteen Ministries.''

The Bayonne state assemblyman was in line to become the state’s Democratic chairman after state Sen. Barbara Buono chose him to become the party’s leader. Historically, the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate is allowed to make the pick.

Not so fast, said some Democratic bigwigs, notably moderate Dems like state Sen. Stephen Sweeney, who has worked closely with Christie. In nixing O’Donnell’s appointment, Sweeney noted that the assemblyman wasn’t even able to help defend Jerramiah Healy in the Jersey City mayor’s race.

O’Donnell helped Healy with by pouring money into his campaign, to no avail.

But newly-minted Mayor Fulop, still smarting over O’Donnell’s aggressive help for Healy, joined Sweeney in opposing the assemblyman becoming state Dem chair.

In the end, the two sides in the O’Donnell flap compromised by naming John Currie, the Passaic County Democratic chairman, chair of the state party.

So O’Donnell lost state chair and watched as the man he worked to defeat become mayor of one of the two cities he represents in the Assembly. He’ll probably be counting the minutes until this year is over.

This time, the target was West New York Mayor Felix Roque, who stood trial in federal court in September on charges that he and his son hacked into an anti-Roque website and intimidated the mayor’s critics.

The verdict was good for Roque, who was acquitted of hacking into the website, set up by Freeholder Jose Munoz, and of conspiracy. His son, who admitted on the witness stand to hacking into the site, was less happy: he was found guilty of hacking and acquitted of conspiracy.

The verdict, met with cheers inside the courtroom, didn’t cool things down in West New York, where commissioner meetings are raucous as ever. But the preceding trial did reveal some tasty tidbits about the world of Hudson County politics we all know and love, though recounted inside the federal courthouse, it all sounded very “Mean Girls.”

The juiciest bit was that Munoz, who represents West New York on the freeholder board, is an FBI informant, and wore a wire to assist the feds in their case against Roque. Munoz testified that he was afraid of Roque, the physician who stunned the political establishment when he won an upset victory over former Mayor Sal Vega in May 2011.

The news of Munoz’s loose lips allowed Team Roque to brand him as a “snitch,” now and forever. It could also tarnish Munoz’s political future. Even clean pols may not want to sit down with someone who could be recording their every conversation and sending it to the feds.

Munoz is up for reelection next year. Wonder if he’ll get Roque’s endorsement …

Secaucus Assemblyman Vincent Prieto's power rose considerably in 2013, and will continue to rise in 2014.

Prieto, a code official and former bodybuilder, became chair of the Hudson County Democratic Organization this year, taking over for Bayonne Mayor Mark Smith after the HCDO bungled the Jersey City mayor's race. And next year he'll be speaker of the state Assembly, the most powerful position in that chamber.

Prieto will take over for Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, D-East Orange, who had been making noises about a third term as speaker. No dice, with most of the Assembly's Democrats behind Prieto.

A close ally of state Sen. Nicholas Sacco, Prieto would be the latest in a line of Hudson County state legislators who lead the Assembly, including U.S. Rep. Albio Sires, speaker from 2002 to 2005, and former Bayonne Mayor Joe Doria, 1990-91.

It wouldn’t be a list of top political moments if it didn’t include at least one gaffe.

Jersey City Councilwoman Diane Coleman was elected in a special November 2012 election to represent Ward F, the heart of the inner city. A new member of Team Fulop, she promised change.

After less than three months in office, she joked at a caucus that “everyone” in her ward has a criminal record.

Whoops.

Coleman’s gaffe probably doesn’t even rank in the all-time top 100 of Jersey City council member blunders, and it died down after a few days despite some efforts to resuscitate it as the May 14 election inched closer. But it was a needless detour on Coleman’s road to reelection.

Another lesson for pols: leave the jokes to professionals.

Supporters of Steve Fulop protest Jerramiah Healy on May 6, 2013, the day after a Star-Ledger story revealed that Healy had a new, bizarre story for how nude photos of him came to light in 2004.Jersey Journal file photo

The 2013 Jersey City mayor’s race was a wild ride, and it ended on the wildest note.

Mayor Healy, who started his reelection campaign in February 2012 as the underdog, was one year later more hopeful that he’d win a third full term. His campaign team was nervous but optimistic heading into the final stretch.

Then Star-Ledger editorial writer Tom Moran asked about The Photo. You know the one: Healy is naked and slumped on his front stoop. It surfaced before Healy’s initial election as mayor in 2004, but he won anyway. Almost a decade later, it was dim memory for most voters. You couldn’t even find it online.

Then Healy told Moran, in a pre-election interview, an entirely new story about how the photo came to be. In 2004, Healy said he didn’t know how he ended up in front of his Ferry Street home in his birthday suit. When questioned by Moran this year, though, Healy suddenly remembered that three Hispanic girls enticed him out of his home, did “filthy” things and then ripped his towel off just before a political enemy swooped in with a camera.

SNAP.

Moran’s interview ran two Sundays before the May 14 election, and suddenly the old photo was front-and-center in Healy v. Fulop. Panicky Healy donors called his campaign officials, sounding the alarm. With 24 hours, the top Google result for “Jerry Healy for mayor” was the nudie pic, not his campaign website.

Fulop could barely contain his glee.

Healy’s mystified (and ashen-faced) aides arranged hastily scheduled press interviews in his City Hall conference room so he could explain his new story, though he mostly said he wouldn’t discuss it further. He conceded to The Jersey Journal that he “wasn’t thinking that well.”

Eight days later, voters headed to the polls. They handed Fulop an easy victory.